Textile operations often require simultaneous handling of many continuous linear elements, such as yarns or strands to produce a product such as in roving and beaming. Often, the quality of the product depends upon the ability of the system to keep a positive end count of the strands being processed.
Systems have been developed to sense the advancement of each individual strand in roving processes. However, it has generally been the practice to design and operate the system such that when one strand stops or runs out the total roving system will shut down. The operator then determines which strand feeding position is impaired and then manually repairs the strand break or reinsert a new strand into the roving system. Obviously, this is a very slow and inefficient system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,010,908, issued Mar. 8, 1977 discloses a photoelectric system for sensing the advancement of the individual strands from its associated supply package.
The specifications for different products can differ, but there has been an increased requirement for accuracy in maintaining a predetermined number or minimum number of rovings or strands in the composite product. Thus, the means for maintaining a positive end count of the number of strands or rovings being combined has been improved to meet the more stringent requirements along with providing a more efficient and reliable system.